Why, when we know that there’s no such thing as perfect, do most of us spend an incredible amount of time and energy trying to be everything to everyone? Is it that we really admire perfection? No – the truth is that we are actually drawn to people who are real and down-to-earth. We love authenticity and we know that life is messy and imperfect. Brene Brown

What does perfection mean to you? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d know that the art of living and all in it can be messy and complicated. Yet, in the midst of all that messiness are moments of clarity and examples of excellence; even our idealized visions of perfection. However, in reality, perfection is a matter of opinion and depends heavily on our beliefs about what is/isn’t perfect. When we look at the picture above, we see a group of famous, even revered, philosophers known to man. Each of these deep thinkers have shared their philosophical views on the topic of ‘Perfection.” For instance, Aristotle offered three definitions of the word – “complete, good, and attained its purpose”, Plato believed that the “approximation to the idea of perfection makes people perfect,” and Cicero saw “the Circle” as closest to perfection. Each of these brilliant thinkers, from different historical periods and locations, tackled the subject of perfection and came away with the recognition that it includes shades of grey areas.

What motivates you to achieve? If you work hard to be like X instead of your best self, you need to reconsider your motives. If you take a moment to look at the word, Perfection, you’d find that it is viewed from a wide range of conceptual interpretations that run the gamut from art to science and to mathematics. One thing that becomes clear is that there isn’t one definitive description of perfection.

What does that tell us? It tells us that perfection, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. It tells us that we are ‘perfect’ in our imperfections and to expect anything else is foolish. It tells us that while some diamonds are described as flawless, living breathing life-forms are not expected to be flawless. In fact, our quirks, flaws and weaknesses distinguish us from each other and add to our uniqueness. Imagine a world where everyone was the same and did everything in the exact, same way. Would you want to live there? I wouldn’t and, thankfully, our planet is not rich with sameness. What makes it rich is its variety. So why are you hung up on perfection?

You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success – none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here. Ram Dass

Do you strive for excellence or perfection? What’s the difference? Throughout our lives, we experience highs and lows, we stumble and fall, and we have moments of brilliance, success and accomplishments. All of these experiences contribute to our growth; they keep us motivated to achieve more and overcome obstacles. We need those ups and downs to help us stay humble and keep our motivation growing. Why is this important? Because unless we have periods of struggle and even failure in our lives, those periods of great good would not register fully in our minds.

Why strive for excellence not perfection? Striving for excellence is about setting goals for ourselves, doing the work to help us grow, and rising above mediocrity. But excellence is not perfection. Having a perfect SAT score doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you a smart, complex individual with quirks and flaws who scored 100% on a test. By the same token, we can work to achieve excellence while recognizing that perfection is both unattainable and unnecessary. To err is a very human quality and our failures are signposts on the road that we are making progress and challenging ourselves to reach further. Why beat ourselves up or listen to mean asides from naysayers? Even robots that we create to function at higher levels fail and develop glitches? Seeking perfection can create more stress and headaches in your life. Read the story below and think about it.

A Story: The Headache by Anon
One day, a man walked into his doctor’s office complaining… ” Doctor, I have this awful headache that won’t go away. Please, could you give me a prescription for it?”
“I will…” murmured the doctor, pondering what had set off his usually calm patient. “but first, I want to check out a few things and ask you a few questions… Tell me, do you drink a lot of alcohol?”

“Alcohol?” the man shouted back indignantly. “I never touch that filthy stuff. Nor do I go near people who drink it. All filthy!”
“How about smoking?” the doctor calmly inquired.
“I think smoking is disgusting. I’ve never touched tobacco in my life.”
“Okay,” the doctor continued, “I’m a bit embarrassed to even ask this, but… Do you run around at night seeking dangerous pleasures?”
“Of course not! What do you take me for? I’m a highly spiritual and disciplined man. I live a perfect sin-free life, and I’m in bed by 10 o’clock every night.” The man spat back.
“Then, tell me…” said the doctor, “This pain in your head, is it a sharp, shooting kind of pain?”
“Yes, yes!” The man replied eagerly, his eyes lighting up… “It is… a sharp, shooting kind of pain.”
“Well, that’s simple, my dear fellow!” the doctor replied with a smile on his face. “The trouble is that you have your halo on too tight. All we need to do for you is loosen it up a bit; loosen you up a bit! Avoid the bad habits I mentioned earlier, and enjoy some innocent pleasures in life – LIVE!.”

The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for April and May are:04/06 – PERFECTION04/13 – MISTAKES04/20 – GROWTH04/27 – MINDFULNESS

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections. Saint Augustine
I gave up my struggle with perfection a long time ago. That is a concept I don’t find very interesting anymore. Everyone just wants to look good in the photographs. I think that is where some of the pressure comes from. Be happy. Be yourself, the day is about a lot more. Anne Hathaway

If you could ask for the motivation to accomplish one specific perfect thing/goal every day, What would you pick to stay motivated? I bet it would be different from mine. As bloggers, we publish content daily, weekly or even monthly. We write our posts, edit them, and then hit publish. If we spent time worrying about every error we made or every mistake we missed, the point of blogging/sharing information would be lost. The beauty of this creative art-form is that, unlike print media, we can always come back and edit our mistakes, and fix any errors and omissions. I do that every time I write a post. People often forget that even the best, world famous authors have editors. Editing is a skill separate from creative writing. All successful writers have skilled editors. Don’t tarry over errors. Fix them, move forward, and keep writing.

At the end of the day, what truly matters to each of us will differ. I might believe that perfection is a warm spring day with daffodils and tulips dancing in the air. You might believe that perfection is having ideal skiing conditions with freshly groomed snow that is powdery, light and soft. Our eyes might light up at the sight of a bird gathering twigs to build a nest on our roof, and we might marvel at the genius behind the art and perfection of their nest. Someone else might spend hours observing an anthill and the teeming life around it, and describe the experience as Perfect. All are right from their point of view, so it’s a waste of time to expect any of us to conform to an idealized standard. Get on with the art of living. Get motivated to live a rich life. Perfection is not required.

Positive Motivation Tip: Live your life with ease, give your best and leave the rest, perfection is not required.

Motivation Mondays is open to anyone who wishes to share a motivational quote, photo, personal challenge or a post that encourages others to start the week on an upbeat note.Basic Instructions: Each week, I will have a motivation word to help us create a response. (See listed words for end of November and all of December below)Email address: You may email or share your post as a comment and I will add it to the round-up of related posts. email it to: contact(@)mirthandmotivation(.)comCategory tag: – Share your post using Motivation MondaysTwitter hashtag: – Use this on Twitter #MotvnMDedicated Page: There is a dedicated page for Motivation Mondays. It has the same instructions and will include other helpful tools and a link to the round-upFacebook Page:MotivationOnMondays Join our page and add your post and/or any motivational piece you think will be helpful to others.Facebook Community: We have a Facebook community forum to compliment the page. It serves as another way to share uplifting posts and thoughts. Please join in and add your voice.

Badge: – I created a fun badge using PicMonkey’s free photo editing tools. You can create your own, use WordPress’ integrated tool on your blog or you are welcome to use mine. (see dedicated page)Tag: – Motivation MondaysHashtag: – #MotvnM

My favorite quote ever: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” It’s true. But why be afraid of perfection? As the quote above says, you’ll never reach it. So just press on, get better, LEARN, and apply that knowledge. Progression and expansion are what we should live for.

Wow Liz! You are a kindred soul. I always see myself as my competition too not others. When we constantly compare ourselves to others we’ve already lost… There will always be stronger, better, smarter folks out there, so it’s best to focus on our own game and strive for excellence at things that truly matter.

I used to be a perfectionist and still try to be in certain areas of my life. I need gentle reminders and encouragement. Thank you for sharing this today. I truly believe that God and Jesus are the only perfect ones in the world.

Perfection is down right boring and there really is not clear-cut definition and there never will be. We all have our own opinions when it comes to perfection… And honestly, I find perfection in the tiniest of things.

I like the differentiation you draw between striving for perfection or excellence. That sums it up in a nutshell for me. I don’t expect anyone (including myself) to be perfect. I do strive for excellence…the best you can do though.

When I was younger, I’ve always wanted to be the perfect person – perfect daughter, perfect friend, perfect someone – but when I grew older, I understood that perfection is just ideal; nobody is perfect. I learned to accept my flaws and everything fell into its place.

When something happens that feels frustrating to me, I try to stay in the mindset of “I don’t really know why this is happening … it could be setting me up for a miracle.” Then even the crappy stuff becomes part of the perfection.

This is so inspiring and motivating! Pinned and stumbled 🙂 If you dont already, stop by and link up at Totally Terrific Tuesday! I would love to have you there 🙂
Jess
LiveRandomlySimple
here from #PPFAB (pinterest promotion for Awesome bloggers!)

I have wasted a lot of energy being disappointed with my own imperfections. It’s only recently that I’ve realized perfection is impossible and unnecessary, and that I should just be happy knowing I’ve tried my best to be the best I can be.

I love the last part of you article, mainly because it is so true, truly what matters differs from every person’s perspective. One thing may be perfect to me, but not to you, but that doesn’t say that we’re all not perfect in different ways.

Hope motivates me. If the hope gets stripped away, my motivation will dwindle in an instant. Keep the hope there, and I’m still striving and moving forward (sometimes w/headaches from trying too hard, but still…moving forward). I’d love to find a healthy balance. I had it for years and years. Moving about 8 years ago turned my whole world upside down and I’m still recovering…but hindsight doesn’t help things one bit. Hope does though, and I do still have it. 🙂

I strive for perfection in everything I do, do my best and give my best. At the same time I also understand that sometimes things do no go our way. As long as I do my best and I am glad about the outcome. Have gratitude.

In the beginning while I was reading about your post on perfection, the one thing that came to my mind is I’d rather strive for excellence. Lo and behold it was what you were talking about coming towards the middle of your post.

Totally agree that each of us have different points of view. What’s important is we try to do our best to achieve what we think is what will make us happy and satisfied in our lives.

I love that excellence is defined against perfection. That’s the problem with us, we aim for perfection and it frustrates us because we put unrealistic standards upon ourselves. Whereas we can achieve excellence by giving our best as we pursue our goals. It reminds me of that line in Hunger games, there is always a “flaw” to everything no matter have perfectly designed they seem to be. 🙂

I love how perfection is defined against excellence! It reminds me of that part in Hunger games when one of the smarter champions said there’s always a flaw in any system, no matter how perfect it seems. We can’t really pursue perfection, that would be a frustrating goal, but excellence speaks of character. 🙂